Page 125 of The Great Dating Fake Off
I plod back into Benji’s eclectic dining room. “Sorry, my mom called. If I don’t answer it’s like missing a hold at the library and getting sentenced to two more weeks of waiting.”
“No problem.” Benji returns Tairn to his perch. His gaze then moves to the globe of liquid in my hand. “You opened another bottle already?”
I gesture at the Catan board set up in the center of his round table. “It’s four p.m. and you just took road and army. Leave me alone.”
“You’ll get it next round. Your numbers just aren’t rolling so far.”
“This round’s not over yet, bucko.”
It almost assuredly is, but I intend to go down swinging in this battle.
Mostly, I’m just grateful for my regular routine.Game nights with Benji. Mediocre wine. It’s exactly what I need to help me feel centered.
It almost helps distract me from missing Sebastian.
I take my seat and remove my hat to fan myself. It’s bitterly hot out and Benji’s AC is struggling to keep up. I don’t know when it officially counts as the dog days of summer, but I think we’re getting close.
Benji points at my head. “Where did you get that hat?”
I run a hand over the brim of the Mets hat. “Uh, from you? It showed up on my doorstep from Amazon this morning with a gift receipt with your name on it.”
His face screws up in confusion, and then settles into vague indifference. “Right. Yeah.”
I frown. “You didn’t know you bought me a hat?”
He opens and closes his mouth, then shakes his head. “The guy wants to be caught, I swear.”
“What are you talking about?”
Benji’s phone chimes with an incoming text. He frowns at it and turns the thing facedown. “Sebastian has developed a bit of a buying-you-shit habit this week and has been making me give them to you so you don’t know they’re from him,” he tells me. “The coffee you drink religiously, the mango smoothie you’re weirdly obsessed with, the soup on that day it rained.” He waves at the hat. “That. I’d never buy you a hat from an organized professional sport. I’m surprised that didn’t tip you off.”
I gape at him, unable to process blinking a very loud red in my brain. “But…why would he do that? We’re over.”
He rearranges the cards in his hand. “Nora. He strong-armed me into bringing you things like a cat brings fresh kills to its owner. He likes you. At the very least, from a scientific standpoint, he wants you taken care of.”
“Wow, that could’ve been really sweet without the fresh kills part.”
My heart clenches anyway. Giving gifts and taking care of someone doesn’t seem like things people who’ve gone their separate ways do. If we were friends, maybe. Benji and I exchange gifts sometimes. So is that what we are now? Why not just give them to me himself? I have so many questions and no one to answer them. “I’m so confused.”
“Me too.” He points at the board. “Now were you going to buy a settlement or—”
“This has been a hellish roller coaster,” I blurt. “Being with him brought me to the top of the world, higher than I ever thought possible, and then I crashed when it ended.” My stomach sloshes, and not from the wine. “Every day is mental warfare imagining what it will be like when I catch wind from Alessia or whoever that he’s found someone else who wants to save the world with him because he’s basically Superman and who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?” I plunk my glass down on the table hard enough that wooden roads and settlements shudder on the board. “The point is, it ended, but I still want him. And hearing he’s buying me gifts? Now it doesn’t feel over.”
“Nora. You’re spiraling.”
I throw my head back and groan at the ceiling. “I know. I can’t help it.”
“Yes, you can,” Benji says, returning the pieces to their proper places. “Ask yourself, what do you want? Do you want to date him long distance?”
“I’ve thought about it, but I’m not sure what we’d be dating toward? What’s the endgame? It’s not just that he’s moving this one time. It’s Nebraska now, but it’ll be somewhere new all the time after that. I want to settle down and have family sooner rather than later. I want my kids to have a permanent home.”
“I see. And you aren’t willing to move again?”
My heart drops. “You think I should move?”
“No.” He looks deeply ruffled by this. “Don’t go putting thoughts in my head.”
“Sorry. It’s just that I have a life here that I love. Liking someone isn’t enough of a reason to uproot my life. Do you know how many times my mother did that for a man?”
